The pizza delivery man in Los Angeles had something much spicier than the hottest pepperoni in his hand: an arrest warrant issued in one of the biggest international drugs operations.

By the end of the operation, more than 100 people in nine different countries had been taken into custody, including one of the big cheeses in the cocaine trade, the Colombian-born Pablo Rayo-Montano, known as El Tio (the uncle) who was captured in Brazil.

While not all the agents used disguises to snare their prey, the sheer scope of the operation appeared to take those arrested by surprise. Agents claimed to have seized more than 50 tonnes of cocaine and millions of dollars in the coordinated raids, after three years of surveillance.

"It is extremely significant when you consider the amount of cocaine - 52 tonnes," said a spokesman for the Drugs Enforcement Administration in Washington yesterday.

"That significant effect is going to be felt around the world." He said that more arrests could follow.

The prime catch, as far as the DEA officials and their colleagues in Brazil were concerned, was Rayo-Montano, who had been on the run for 10 years. The arrest of the capo was spectacular.

Seven federal agents armed with assault rifles swept into the luxury apartment in the upmarket Itaim neighbourhood of Sao Paulo, which the capo shared with his wife, early on Tuesday.

The officer responsible for his capture, Sergio Trivelin, told reporters that Rayo-Montano used an art gallery called Proart in the chic Jardins area to launder drug trafficking money and that he was responsible for sending at least 20 tonnes of cocaine to the US and Europe each month.

Rayo-Montano is described as one of the world's top 10 drug traffickers by Brazilian authorities.

Twelve arrest warrants were issued by police in Sao Paulo and among the arrests were six Argentines and two other Brazilians, including his wife, Elizabeth Albear.

Police believe he used so-called "Go-Fast" motorboats to deliver the drug to the Gulf of Mexico, where it was then picked up by fishermen. His involvement in the cocaine trade is thought to stem back to the 1990s, when he became an associate of the Cali cartel in Colombia.

"The drugs were delivered disguised as fish," Mr Trivelin told the O Globo newspaper, adding that the trafficker was known to be negotiating the purchase of large amounts of tuna fish in Brazil.

As well as running his fiefdom on islands around Panama, he also had extensive properties in Brazil, including apartments, art galleries and fishing companies. Police, who also found a painting by the Brazilian artist Di Cavalcanti in his flat, value El Tio's assets at at least $70m (37m).

Other arrests were made in Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Such a large operation is almost unprecedented as it is difficult to coordinate when there are so many opportunities for information to leak.

One of the features of the Rayo-Montano cartel, according to officials, was the vast scale of its transport system. "The organisation had its own private, rogue navy to run a drug business that was nearly as sophisticated as a small nation," DEA administrator Karen Tandy said in a press release.

An estimated $70m (£37m) has been seized in the current round of arrests.

The Rayo-Montano organisation has been a major target for the DEA which claims that it is responsible for both cocaine and heroin smuggling to Europe and the US. Whether Rayo-Montano is now extradited to the US to stand trial is another issue.

Although the US would like to see him in a federal court, where, if convicted, he would probably spend the rest of his life behind bars, Brazil is likely to want to try him there first.